SOC 2700 Chapter Notes -Michael R. Gottfredson, Truancy, Juvenile Delinquency
Document Summary
Control theories assume that all people naturally would commit crimes is left to their own devices. The key question is why most people do not commit crime. Control theories answer this question by focusing on special controlling forces that restrain the person from committing crimes. These forces break down in certain situations, resulting in crime and other. Thus individuals are said to commit crime because of the weakness of forces restraining them from doing so, not because of the strength of forces driving them todo so. In 1951, albert reiss published an articles where he examined a number of factors related to the control perspective to see if they might be used to predict the revocation of probation among juvenile offenders. Also, probation was more likely to be revoked when juveniles did not regularly attend school and when they were described as behavioural problems.
